The Certainty of not knowing

 

            “I don’t know.”

                I have gotten pretty good at saying these words lately. It seems like these words can answer most questions that I get asked, especially regarding things pandemic-related. Months ago I was trying to make educated guesses on a time-line of events when I was asked questions, but now I am simply resigned to saying “I don’t know.” And being the calendar-driven planner that I am, this is has been an adjustment. As of this moment, as I am writing this, the churches I serve plan to be meeting Sunday morning for an outdoor worship service at 10:30AM. Will that change? I don’t know. When will be back inside our building for worship? I don’t know.

                One good thing from all my “I don’t know’s” is that God does know. And I’ve known that all along, but lately that has become a deeper truth for me.

                Matthew chapter 16 ends with Jesus’ predicting His death. He is letting His disciples know that they will be travelling to Jerusalem together, and that He “suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed” (Matthew 16:21).

                No one wants to hear that there is suffering on the road ahead, and the disciples were no different. I am sure that they all thought the same thing, but it was Peter who vocally objected.

                “Never, Lord!” Peter said, “This will not happen to you!”

                Sometimes I think I more than I do (don’t tell me wife). And sometimes I realize how little that I really do know. Peter thought that he knew better than Jesus, he thought he had a better way. And the reason for this, I think, was that Peter was trying to avoid the suffering that Jesus said that He would encounter in Jerusalem. Peter loved Jesus, and I don’t think that he wanted Jesus to suffer, but I also don’t think that Peter wanted to suffer either, and apparently heading to the city with Jesus would mean suffering for them all.

                And that’s natural. None of us want to suffer. The issue is that as Peter focused on the pain, he was missing the promise.

                Jesus didn’t just say that they would be heading into Jerusalem to suffer and that He would die. He did say that, and that’s probably where Peter stopped listening. Sometimes when we hear something that we don’t want to, or something that we don’t agree with we stop listening, and in so doing we miss the really important part that comes next.

                Peter missed a really important part. Jesus wasn’t just predicting His death, He was also predicting His resurrection!

                “And on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21b)

                And so Peter rebuked, which means to correct strongly, Jesus because he didn’t hear the whole thing. He stopped listening because what he heard didn’t sound like what he thought it should. He had just made a big confession of faith as Jesus as the Messiah, the “Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-20), and now Jesus was saying that He would die? Peter thought he knew the answer to how things were going to work out, and this wasn’t it.

                Thankfully for all of us, Jesus wasn’t deterred by Peter. This was one prayer request that I am glad God didn’t answer. Jesus heading to Jerusalem and His death on the cross would bring forgiveness for the sins of all the world, and His resurrection on the third day would bring life to all the world in his name!

                Sometimes we don’t have all the answers. Sometimes life is uncertain. Jesus tried explaining to His disciples exactly what was going to happen to them, and they didn’t want to hear it. I think we would probably be the same if we knew everything. So, thankfully we don’t. And that’s OK, because Jesus does.

                Will we experience more suffering in this life, even this year? Probably. But I don’t know for sure. What I do know that is that when we focus on the pain, we miss the problem. And the promise is that God is with us. No matter what the future holds. And that is all the certainty I really need.

Connected at the Table

Now more than ever, we are looking for ways to stay connected. From how we connect with our jobs and clients, or with school, or with family and friends, connection is critical. And in my circles, how we stay connected as the church is an ongoing conversation. 

First, I want to say that I believe that every church in our area is trying, most more than they have ever done, to stay connected with members. From live streaming in our living rooms to preaching in empty sanctuaries into a cell phone propped up on a stack of hymnals, churches are doing their best to be the church, the whole body of Christ.

These stories inspire me and give me hope, so thank you!

And then I have seen some amazing and creative ways that churches are seeking to maintain connection. I love seeing the stories of the members of the church, not just the pastors, working alongside one another to bring connection in new ways that 6 months ago we would have never even thought about. 

These stories inspire me and give me hope, so thank you!

And all of this is tiring, as well. 

I talked to a church member a few months ago who asked me how I was liking all this vacation time I’m getting since I’m not working preaching now. And she was serious. For me personally, this season has been more exhausting than anything I’ve ever done in ministry. But most of the members in the two churches I serve have been incredibly supportive of me and my family during this time. I can’t put into words how thankful I am for my wife, Heather, also. She is the one who makes sure that the tripod is level and the angle is right every Sunday morning. She handles a virtual welcome and announcements and then hands it over to me to preach as she sits and prays for me. And she has been right by side every Wednesday night Facebook live Bible study, Sunday night Children’s ZOOM, Monday night youth ZOOM, and all of the other special video services we have done since February. I know that this isn’t the case in all clergy families, but I could not have done all this during this Covid-season without her. 

And now, as the number of cases in our county continue to rise, and the possibility of being back together in-person for worship keeps getting pushed further back, we continue to seek connection.

And as much as the innovative and creative ways of connection have inspired me and given me hope in our church, it is something else that gives me a deeper hope for the future of the “church”. 

Hugh Wallace, a member at Telford UMC, takes his laptop to Jackie’s house every Sunday morning (and took Jackie a mask since he didn’t have one). Jackie doesn’t have internet access, or a computer, or a smartphone. He is disconnected from all of the online worship opportunities. But now is connected because of Hugh. 

The kitchen table has become a place of worship, again. 

The table has truly been extended, again.

And all because one person took a laptop to another person’s house so that they could worship together. So that they could have church together….so that they could be the church together. 

I am amazed by all of our creative ways to stay connected, but perhaps the “house church” or the “kitchen table church” is what inspires me most right now. And it doesn’t take a lot. It just takes a Jackie who has a need, and a Hugh willing to do something about it.

The Superabundant Grace in the Leftovers

We have a ritual that we go through every week in our house. Heather and I go through the refrigerator and throw away all the leftovers that we kept for the week, the things that we brought home from the restaurant because we didn’t eat it all and we didn’t want to be wasteful and throw it away there, so we brought it home to throw it away here. The casserole from Sunday lunch, or sometimes just the things we thought we needed and so we bought them, only to never use them and have to throw them away. Then of course there are the things our kids have stuck in the fridge and forgot about.

The story in Matthew chapter 14 of Jesus feeding the 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish is a great illustration of the grace that can be seen in the leftovers.

If there’s anything I know for certain right now about the world we are living in, is that there is a lot of uncertainty. When will our kids go back to school? What exactly will that look like? When can we come back to in person worship? What will that look like? When can we sing in public again? When will we be able to just hug someone again? When will there be a vaccine? When will this end? Like many of the psalms, we ask, “How long, O Lord?”

Today I invite you to read Matthew 14:13-21. It’s a familiar story that if you’ve been around church much you’ve probably heard before. It’s a favorite in our Sunday school classes and when more people than we anticipated show up for a potluck so we pray for Jesus to multiply our fishes and loaves as our counters are full of meatloaf and macaroni and cheese.

But at the heart of the story, there is a dilemma. There is a problem that arises.

It is the uncertainty of scarcity. It’s about not having enough, or at least feeling like we don’t.  When survival determines our mindset we lose sight of God. Gregory Jones, the Dean of Duke Divinity School, says this is when we “become practical athiests rather than Spirit-inspired people of hope”.

I think we live in a culture of not-enough.

Have you ever said there’s just not enough money? How many of you didn’t get enough sleep last night? Or felt like you didn’t get enough done this past week? Have you ever thought you didn’t have enough time to do what was needed? Or maybe that you don’t have enough skills to do it anyway? Or as we get older have you thought that there just isn’t enough time in general?

The mindset of not-enough will lead us to a mindset of uncertainty because of the scarcity we see, but the reality is that there is a certainty—and we can see it in the abundance of the leftovers.

I don’t think God shows up in amazing ways when we have too much. Maybe because that’s when we are more focused on our own security, but I have seen God show up many times in amazing ways in times of shortage.

Jesus is showing the need to recognize the responsibility to meet the needs of those around him, those around us.

And then Jesus invites his disciples into the work of distribution, as he gave to the disciples and then the disciples gave to the people.  And over 5000 were fed. And not just fed, did you catch that word in verse 20?

They were “satisfied”. It’s the same word Matthew used in describing the beginning to the sermon on the Mount in chapter 5, what we call the beatitudes.  There in verse 6 Jesus says “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled…or, satisfied.

Filled to brim, stuffed, over-flowing.

With 12 basketfull left over!

Some biblical commentators say there was 12 baskets to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and lots of books have been written on meaning of the leftovers.

But I see this as an example of the greatness of the miracle, thousands of people fed because Jesus took care of them with what others brought to him.

I see in this an example of what Sam Wells, called “superabundance”. This extravagant generous grace of God to not just provide the bare minimum of what is needed, but to be so divinely generous that our uncertainty of scarcity is replaced with the certainty that Jesus will provide.

Or as Paul put it in to the Philippians, “my God shall abundantly satisfy all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Because of his compassion, Jesus did something that the people could not do on their own.

Because of his compassion, Jesus continues doing something that the people could not do on our own.

God’s superabundant grace is extended to us as well, and we are invited to come hungry, and to be filled…to be satisfied.

            Today I pray that you see this superabundant grace of God in your life as well. God will provide your needs, and God will ask you to participate in the distribution to help provide the needs of others as well.

           

 

 

 

The Dualism of "Good Faith" Lamenting

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, 

and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,

My help and my God!” 

Psalm 42-43 provides a unique framework and insight into the question of innovative pastoral leadership in the Psalms. In fact, the refrain above, sung in 42:5, 42:11, and 43:5 asks, and answers a critical question framed with “why” and “hope”. As I have reflected on this Psalm I believe that it provides in its cohesion a fresh understanding that is much needed in today’s pastoral leadership as it hearkens back to the prophetic callings of the Old Testament prophets themselves. In the asking of the question, and in the answering of the question, there is reflected a model of holding complex ideas in tension together, rather than just separating them as opposites, such as the question of why and the answer of hope.

We live in a society of either/or. It has to be either this way or that way, and if it is not one way or the other then it must be a luke-warm compromise. I believe that this is not always the case. In fact, this Psalm (I will be referring to Psalm 42-43 as a singular unit of the psalter since originally these 2 Psalms were one unit based on their cohesive theme and the refrain mentioned above) helps guide us into a way of thinking, or perhaps remembering, grounded in conversation and question. 

As the opening verse of this Psalm paints the picture of the deer (actually the female hart), longing for the cool water of the flowing streams I am reminded of the opening of Augustine’s Confessions, “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it finds repose (rest) in Thee.” Each of us is longing for what will fill the desires of our souls, where we find our purpose and passion, our raison d’etre. This longing and searching can lead us to many places, and take us down many paths. Augustine, while taking many paths that led him away from God in his younger years, came to know the reality that our restlessness is made restful-ness only when we settle into God as that true rest. And likewise the psalmist turns that searching toward the “living God” (42:2), and places thirsting for God as the source of comfort and the source of “hope” that the properly-ordered life is moving toward, even in the midst of pain.

Dean Gregory Jones said that “too often we put things against each other that need to be and rather than or.” Holding things together in tension rather than just placing them against each other is a leadership need in our church today, even in our larger society today. The placing of differing views as polar opposites creates a space in between the two, a divide that is a gulf-like chasm that seems difficult to find a way around. The current state of our United Methodist Church is an example of this. And in many cases there simply is no way around, but perhaps that is because we do not need a way around, we need a way together. More of a bridge, rather than another path. That is where the dualism of the psalm offers cohesion as a bridge to come together. Even in the print layout this is seen. Two Psalms that are different on the pages of our Bibles, one numbered “Psalm 42” and the other divided by a separate number, “Psalm 43”. We see by looking at them that they are not the same. And yet when we read them we see that they go together. They are cohesive, not in their identical nature, but rather in their thematic purpose and flow. They complement one another. My wife is not identical to me, but she is the perfect complement to me. In some ways, I don’t make sense without her. And this gets to a point of innovative pastoral leadership that I see as critical today, and that is seeing the complementary aspects of another, rather than only focusing on the divisive aspects.

“My tears have been my food, 

Day and night, 

While people say to me continually, 

“Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:3)

As I read these verses I am reminded of times in my own life where my only sustenance seemed to be grief and pain. The painful imagery of tears being the source of nourishment could provide the food for a soul which is embittered and full of sorrow. And this theme is fairly prevalent in life, and so is a prevalent reflection in the psalter as well. The psalms of lament are the largest category of psalms in the Bible (perhaps this speaks to the amount of lament we might face in our own lives), but Ellen Davis writes that “when you lament in good faith, opening yourself to God honestly and fully--no matter what you have to say--then you are beginning to clear the way for praise..toward the time when God will turn your tears into laughter.”

Can one be miserable and joyful at the same time? Can there be wails of lamenting and a strong hope in the same breath? Can there be justice delivered and mercy extended in the same situation? Can we maintain aspects of the past while at the same time embracing a newness of an unknown future? And the answers are Yes! Pastoral leadership that can speak the language of cohesive dualisms do not focus on the polarizing divide, but rather begins with seeking to allow “opposable thinking to hold them together in tension”.

Dean Gregory Jones writes that “traditioned innovation is a way of thinking and living that holds the past and future together in creative tension...our feet are firmly on the ground with our hands open to the future.”

Two great places to begin in seeking to help our churches, our community, and our world, hold together hard things in tension is through conversation and remembrance. 

This psalm is a seeking answers through the medium of conversation. “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” I think of the many times that I have asked myself questions like this, and the answer was obvious, because of what was happening to me, that’s why! It’s the situation that is going on around me or where I find myself that has caused a downcast soul within me! And for the psalmist writing here this was true as well. Commentators write that the psalms of Korah are “about how to face exile in hope and continued service born of loss.” Their identity (the descendants of Korah) and even functional societal roles were relegated to a past ancestral action of Korah. The lament is a holy conversation with God, trusting in His justice (verse 43:1), safety (verse 42:9, 43:2, 43:3), and steadfast love (42:8).

And it is in the act of remembering that the psalmist is able to boldly proclaim, “Hope in God”. The post-exilic people hearing and singing this psalm could only remember the stories of the good old days of being among the throng of people heading in a procession to the temple with singing and shouts of thanksgiving (42:4), and hopes to one day be able to do that again (43:4) (and so do we!). And in the remembering there is hope. 

This past week my wife showed me a Facebook memory of a picture of her and our middle daughter, Hannah. The picture was from a year ago, but we haven’t talked to Hannah or been able to have any contact with her since December 19, 2019. She left a note and left home and asked us not to be in her life until she was ready. 

And so we wait. 

We lament. 

We send texts and messages but get no response. 

We feel downcast. 

We check her bank account activity to ensure she is still alive. 

We pray. 

And we remember, as the psalmist did (42:4). 

As my wife, Heather, showed me her Facebook memory she said, “I’m glad I have those memories”. Even in the pain there are memories of joy, and even in the waiting, there is hope. There is an eschtalogical hope in Psalm 42-43 that rises above the situation and allows hope in pain to be held together. And that is “good faith lamenting” lived out in cohesive dualism in the psalms, and in life. 

You can have anything you want

“You can have anything you want.”

When I hear these words it reminds me of Solomon’s dream where God said this to him, and of course it echos words of Jesus that anyone who asks, receives.

            But mainly when I hear, “you can have anything you want”, it reminds me of my mother. Not that I ever heard, “you can have anything you want” from her when I was a kid. But it was a frequent statement that she made to my five children, every month when I took her to Dollar Tree. You know The Dollar Tree, right? The store where everything is only…a dollar.

            And so she would tell her grandchildren before we went in, “you can have anything in the store you want, just ask Granny for it”. And for a while this was pretty amazing, my children would wander up and down every aisle looking at everything, because they were told they could have anything, and so they would check out shower curtains and socks, note pads and wrapping paper, until they finally settled into the toy or the candy aisle. At some point they even realized that when the decision was really hard, and they couldn’t decide between the pink iced animal crackers and the sparkly hoolahoop, that Granny might buy them both….if they asked.

            As they got a little older the wonder of those trips began to wear off, I suppose when they realized that getting anything you want in a place where everything is only a dollar, wasn’t quite as thrilling anymore.

            “Ask for whatever you want me to give you”, the Lord tells Solomon in a dream. And Solomon’s request is one that we are all familiar with. Wisdom. The whole story can be read in 1 Kings 3:4-15 New International Version.

            Imagine this bold declaration was made to us by the Lord, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you”. What would we say to such a statement? What would we ask for in 2020?

            Many things are much different now than they were in early March. Many things have been cancelled, or changed so dramatically that they don’t even feel like the old things anymore. And yet the one true constant, the unchangeable, the immutable, the eternal stability in our lives, is Jesus, who is the same today, and yesterday, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

            Our church worship services have been, perhaps, forever changed by Covid-19. And even though the orders of worship have been altered, even though the predictability of our services has been up-ended, and even though the normality of our Sunday mornings is very different, the reason we worship has not changed.

            Seeking God in worship, and in prayer, is still the first step in hearing what God has to say to us. Before we ask anything of God, before we can do anything for God, we must first be still and listen to what God is asking of us, or perhaps even offering to us. That’s probably why God visited so many men in the Scriptures in their dreams, for some of us this is the only time we are still enough to listen.

            And so Solomon asks for wisdom to govern the people where God has placed him. A discerning heart, and to distinguish between right and wrong. Between good and evil. And to administer justice, to do what is right and to ensure that what is right is what is being done. And then in the 2^nd half of chapter 3 this wisdom gets put to the test.

Ask for whatever you want me to give you.

            Solomon could have been dumbfounded by the magnitude of this, he could have been overwhelmed by the enormity of the options. When you can have anything in the whole store our tendency is to go up and down every aisle, and to look at everything, many things that we simply don’t need.

           

            Solomon asks to be the leader that God will equip him to be. The leadership and the throne was given to Solomon by God anyway, so it makes sense that the tools that Solomon needs will be provided by God as well.

And perhaps that hasn’t changed.

Perhaps God is calling you into a more defined Christian leadership role within your family, within your church, within your community. And perhaps this reminder of Solomon asking to be the leader God wanted him to be will help you.

1.      Seeking God in prayer and worship (1 Kings 3:4)

2.      Admitting what we don’t know (1 Kings 3:7)

3.      And asking boldly for God’s guidance and wisdom to be His servant leader to the people where we have been placed (1 Kings 3:8-9)

This is not just a summary of Solomon’s gift of wisdom, these are steps we can implement in our own leadership roles to be the transformational servant leaders that God has called us to be, who God is equipping us to be. Right here. Right now.

So, “Ask for whatever you want Him to give you”, and trust that He will give you what you need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burdens and Baggage

I read a story this week about a dad who was on a hike with his daughter. She was tired and wanted to go home and was begging him to carry her bucket of rocks.

Evidently, they had been hiking for a while. She had been picking up rocks and twigs and dumping them into a little pink plastic bucket. Now, however, she wanted to go home. She was too tired to walk and carry the bucket. So, she was crying and asking her dad to carry the bucket for her. He told her, “No.” He could see how tired she was, but he could also see something she could not. He knew she needed someone to do something more than merely carry her bucket.

So, he knelt down, and asked her to carry the bucket while he picked her up and carried her on his shoulders. She began to cry. She did not want to carry the bucket, but he lifted her up anyway. He hoisted her with her bucket on his shoulders and started to walk away. And as he carried her she rested the pink bucket of rocks on his head.

In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I have preached the sermons before on what we need to lay down, and that is true to an extent. There is baggage in our lives that we carry with us that we need to lay down. There are past experiences and regrets that we need to lay down. There are habits and hang-ups that we need to lay down at the feet of Jesus and walk away from.

And for those things, that baggage needs to be given to God so that we can be free of them. We weren’t ever meant to carry those.

But then there are some burdens which we can’t lay down. There are some things that are affecting our lives right now, or the lives of our loved ones, that are heavy and tiresome, but are just part of life right now. We can’t lay them down and walk away because they are right here with us.

That’s where the picture of the dad and his daughter I think is helpful. Maybe there are some things which we just have to carry right now, in this season of our lives. But how do we do that when we just want God to carry them for us? What about the burden? I think the answer is in the yoke.

It’s an interesting picture, especially as we think about our freedom we celebrated just a week ago. The apostle Paul said that we are free in Christ and should never again be bound by the yoke of slavery. Throw the yoke off, I am free!

And yet Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me”.

A yoke was a wooden crosspiece that was normally fastened around the necks of two animals to pull a plow or a cart.

The yoke does not alleviate the burden, but the yoke does share the burden. And Jesus’ offer here is not necessarily to take it all away, but to submit to a different kind of yoke. To work in partnership with Christ. And you will find rest for your souls.

I believe we all need some soul rest, especially right now. May you find it today, yoked to Jesus Christ our Lord to carry the burdens of today, knowing that God is with you.

 

 

The Prodigal's Father

Jesus continued, “There was a man who had two sons”.

                Most people probably know at least something about this verse. It is from Luke 15:11. And the story that follows is most often referred to as the parable of the “Prodigal Son”. The parable is part of three separate stories that Luke 15 contains about being lost; a lost sheep, a lost coin, and here in verses 11-32, a “lost” son.

                I have preached and taught, written and studied, about this lost-ness many times over the years. Most often we are told to see ourselves as the prodigal son, the one who leaves home and does what he or she wants, and then realizes what he left behind, and so the ‘prodigal’ comes back home. There is a deep truth in that for each of us, we are this son. The story is a call to come back home, and the welcome that our Father will give us with open armed forgiveness, grace, and even a heavenly party.

                Sometimes perhaps we see ourselves as the older brother, the one who stayed home and worked for his father while his little brother squandered his inheritance and then only came home when his good times friends had left him and his money was gone. He wasn’t happy at his father’s reaction when his partying little brother decided to come home. He felt like he deserved more since he had followed the rules, he had worked hard, he had been there. There is a deep truth in that for each of us, we are this brother at times as well. It is a reminder of how much God loves all of His children, uniquely and collectively.

                And it is God who we see as the Father in this story. The one who graciously gives to his son and lets him go, and then graciously accepts him back into the family when he returns home. There is no long lecture, there is no “I told you so”, there is simply acceptance in love. There is a party thrown, a celebration because this son was “dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:33).

                Maybe you can identify with the father in this story as well. I know some of you who have had a child leave and you waited day after day until she returned. I know some of you who are still waiting.  

December 19, 2019 gave me a new perspective on this story. It was the day that my daughter left a note and left home.

                Jesus doesn’t tell us what the father did while the son was gone.

But now I know.

He prayed for his child every day. He sent letters and texts, and emails, and snaps. He got angry, and sad, and frustrated. He grieved what felt like the death of his child, even though his child was not physically dead, but day to day he never even really knew that for sure.

                He wondered how this could happen. Why did this happen? Weren’t they a happy family? Didn’t his kids really love each other? Didn’t his child really love him? Where did they go wrong? How could his child feel that leaving a 3-page note was easier than talking to her parents?

                And so he every day he checked his mailbox, checked his inbox, checked to see if the text had been read, checked to see if the snap had been opened, checked the obituaries.

                He hugged his wife more often and cried for no apparent reason other than for seeing a picture that his daughter had painted, or hearing a song that she liked. He ate dried banana chips, even though he never liked them, because it was one of her favorite snacks.

                In the parable the son came home. Maybe yours will too. Maybe mine will. I don’t know. What I do know is how much the father loves, and the hole in the father’s heart when the child walks away. And the father’s longing to have that child come home.

                I have a new perspective on this story now. I didn’t want it. But I have it. Gender identity and pronoun usage aren’t as big of a deal when your child is gone, you just want them back.

                I have four other amazingly wonderful children that I thank God for every day. And yet every day I look for the one who is gone.

                I only have a human glimpse into the pain that God feels as we turn away from Him, for the sadness God feels when He reaches out every single day to talk to us and we ignore Him and don’t respond. If you’re waiting on someone today, keep waiting. Keep praying. Don’t give up, because God never gave up on us.

                One day we will be in the very presence of God forever, and any pain here will be gone, and every tear will wiped away. One day reconciliation will be complete and perfect. And until that day comes, I will continue waiting, and looking, and longing for the day when I can say, “we have to celebrate and be glad, because this sister of yours was dead and is alive again, was gone and now she is home, she was lost and now is found”.